So here's the deal with that change:
- It's a killing of Memefire completely.
- It's a decent/substantial nerf to 2+ target AoE. On AHC for example, this is about a 5% DPS loss for one of my latest logs (the 8% buff to SW/LS is negligible in comparison).
- It's about neutral (a bit positive) on ST fights with low movement (Varimathras).
- It's a neutral to NERF on high movement ST. The 8% buff was NOT enough of a recuperation to make this mostly neutral since it's a loss to mobile DPS (where you'll likely be spamming MF if you can't be in range of the boss for SF's Stellar Drift, or you're caught off guard and don't have enough AsP for it).

So yeah, it's a pretty shit thing that didn't need to happen and TBH, they should just replace the trait entirely since it's now back to a like 0.1% or less DPS trait on ST like its original iteration was (which was why it was so massively buffed in the first place).

TL;DR: This nerfs us in every aspect outside of low-movement ST fights and it's bull this affects more than just Memefire. Should replace the trait with something better-and-less-problematic while also buffing something that recuperates the AoE loss a bit.

I pretty much agree with you on what you just explained. I don't really care about single target as their change actually does not make a difference to our middle of the pack if not bottom single target. I care about aoe where we shinned.

I started this post because I felt like venting out my anger towards an unnecessary hard nerf on our trait, but I had not even grasped how much we would be hurt in m+ and aoe fight in general.

I looked at my logs yesterday and saw how hard we would be nerfed in aoe while multi-dotting.

It feels harsh to nerf our aoe that much when it is our niche and blizzard kept saying in the past how much they were fine with classes having their niche for dps.
Our single target is not even close to the top which I can live with, but our aoe is what puts us in a good place. This nerf won't make us bottom dps on aoe, but it will hurt our dps while other cleave/dot classes will stay higher than us.

So this means we will be on the bottom of AOE now and close to bottom when it comes to ST. Great job, i mean really amazing. Affliction lock sustained aoe can be higher than moonkins ( if we dont start with AP ), warriors can do 20m dps with all CDs, rogues as well, monks, shaman.... but lets nefr moonkin 5th time in this expansion...

I get that they want to make casting Solar Wrath and Lunar Strike more appealing, especially given how difficult it can be to get a cast off most of the time; this will likely only make it harder, and your overall damage goes down for it. Having a melee sitting on you all the time was already going to make things difficult, now we can't fight back.
Yet another time the game gets ruined because raiders do weird shit.

Gotta nerf moonkins because god forbid they ever compete with affliction in an aoe fight.

Uh, I don't think moonkins should be nerfed, but they absolutely complete with affliction in "aoe fights" and a quick trip to warcraft logs confirms that.

Affliction might be better at doing useless pad damage on something like aggarmar with absolute corruption and the ring, but in a fight where there's constant AOE, a moonkin will be better/on par, like high command, or harj, or mistress.

That's exactly the point. Spamming Moonfire mindless isn't fun and gameplay. If you feel as if weaving in Solar Wrath and Lunar Strike is less engaging than pressing Moonfire 10 times per second for the length of an encounter/dungeon/etc., then it's pretty clear you're being lazy. Who can min/max with Stellar Drift and nullify this nerf? You probably did this before Wax and Wane was a thing.

In other words, you'd prefer to have the most-mindless playstyle be the best in all situations. The fix to that is to not be lazy.

So you aren't going to spam Moonfire to victory anymore. That's a good thing. That type of gameplay is awful for the health of game.

So this means we will be on the bottom of AOE now and close to bottom when it comes to ST.

Okay so I'm not happy about this nerf, but wow, doomsaying much?

We'll still be a top tier AoE, just we lost a solid 5%+ DPS or so from MFing a ton of adds.

Originally Posted by Cyous

RE: "What classes have fun and engaging gameplay?"

That's exactly the point. Spamming Moonfire mindless isn't fun and gameplay. If you feel as if weaving in Solar Wrath and Lunar Strike is less engaging than pressing Moonfire 10 times per second for the length of an encounter/dungeon/etc., then it's pretty clear you're being lazy. Who can min/max with Stellar Drift and nullify this nerf? You probably did this before Wax and Wane was a thing.

In other words, you'd prefer to have the most-mindless playstyle be the best in all situations. The fix to that is to not be lazy.

So you aren't going to spam Moonfire to victory anymore. That's a good thing. That type of gameplay is awful for the health of game.

Fun is subjective. You can't tell others what is/isn't fun TO THEM.

If you're not spamming Moonfire, you're spamming SW. You're still doing the other spells (keeping up Sunfire, Starfalling, Moon spells), so I don't see a difference in spamming MF over SW. The only difference is it's instant (so mobile) instead of a cast time. Seriously, how it's any more/less fun than spamming SW is beyond me. Also idk why you're talking about Lunar Strike; you never cast that if you don't Starsurge, and isn't Starfall stronger on 2+ targets? Not gonna Starsurge there (unless you're using OI).

I mean, maybe make SW/LS worth actually casting as spells might help the situation. Unempowered SW/LS are absolute jokes. LS is never used outside of Empowerment, mostly due to the horribly short radius unless you know for a fact it'll hit multiple things (I personally don't bother with it out of empowerments). Maybe give us a better trait to replace W&W that makes LSing worth a damn out of emps/Owlkin Frenzies. Maybe don't design traits and set bonuses that further encourage this kind of playstyle and give us more engaging talents/traits/set bonuses/abilities. Maybe throw us a bone somewhere, anywhere.

This is an inherent problem with Moonkin overall and it's partially why I'm very likely to be class changing come 8.0 unless huge improvements are made. The base rotation is very simple for both ST and AoE (practically the same thing, change your spender, remove LS from rotation for AoE), talents/traits/set bonuses haven't really helped, so yeah, it's been a problem. People just wanted something different, which is fun for them. Idk that's my take on all this.

TL;DR:
- Fun is subjective. Don't tell people what they find fun. Classic WoW is coming despite devs saying "you don't want that".
- The "normal" rotation for AoE (2+) is literally the same, except you spam SW instead of MF.
- Problem with Moonkin is we've barely changed our rotation throughout Legion. Only real change was with ED and people don't use it anymore due to 2P T20 being inherently better.
- Talents don't help when the different rotations (mostly just FoE) are worse than not using them.
- Nerf was unwarranted towards people who were doing the "correct" AoE rotation. Also hurts mobile ST damage which we were middle or worse of the pack. This also obliterates any and all chances Moonkins had of surviving 1v1 wPvP ganks and duels (minor point but still worth pointing out).

Last edited by Polarthief; 2018-01-06 at 08:37 PM.

Uses the same signature for over a year, just randomly gets infracted for it recently.
Placeholder signature is placeholder and will hopefully make me finish my shit.
Oh yeah, I'm a Druid and stuff.
I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall.

That's exactly the point. Spamming Moonfire mindless isn't fun and gameplay. If you feel as if weaving in Solar Wrath and Lunar Strike is less engaging than pressing Moonfire 10 times per second for the length of an encounter/dungeon/etc., then it's pretty clear you're being lazy. Who can min/max with Stellar Drift and nullify this nerf? You probably did this before Wax and Wane was a thing.

In other words, you'd prefer to have the most-mindless playstyle be the best in all situations. The fix to that is to not be lazy.

So you aren't going to spam Moonfire to victory anymore. That's a good thing. That type of gameplay is awful for the health of game.

While arguing what is or isn't fun is pointless I personally hate a nerf to a playstyle/option. Yes it was too simple as are many mostly one button spam styles. However, I hate seeing a legendary that was fun, the cloak, get tossed back into the bank never to see the light of day again.

Genuine question for anyone who is not pushing mythic progression. Does it really hit everyone that hard? I'm not a moonkin player by so I'd like to have that stated first and foremost. It really is just, it's the last tier and most of us gonna be chilling after clearing Antorus for a while, or running m+. What then? There's no tier 22 raid or something like that AFAIk ..? So, does it really matter that much?

In case my question didn't get clear, it's not directed to someone if you're on a mythic progression team and the changes are affecting you . But to the rest of us who clears heroic just fine as balance, is it that big of a deal?

I really enjoyed (for the minimal time I've had the gear setup to do it) the Moonfire spam build, because it added some desired mobility in cleave/AoE situations where Stellar Drift wasn't always available. Volcanic week was finally more enjoyable, because if you're the only ranged person in the mythic+ group you may never be able to get a hard cast off at all depending upon how large of a group you pull. I think the adjustment Blizz is coming at us in the wrong form, because it's not like moonfire spamming was viable in every situation... heck, you needed to make some gear adjustments to make it work in certain situations and made a never-preferred legendary useful in some situations. If anything, the change gives us less playstyle freedom and likely hampers the spec overall in any situation versus where the moonfire spam playstyle was actually strong.

Here's hoping explosive week doesn't suck if I have to spend all day moonfire spamming orbs since I can't one-shot them anymore.

*edit* - If anything, I wish they'd buff Lunar Strike in some form since on the surface it screams "use me in AoE/cleave situations"... but rarely/never does get used then. Increase its radius, make it generate more AsP per target hit, anything to make we want to not use a single target spell in those situations.